its 

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"xif  "song  a«01AV9| 


ini-MVVVd 

lNflOWOlOHd 


THE 


NOV  9  1953 


ORGOTTEN 
MAN 

^discovered  After  Fifty  Years 


"He  works,  he  votes,  generally  he  prays — 
but  he  always  PAYS. 
All  the  burdens  fall  on  htm,  or  her, 
for  it  is  time  to  remember  that  the 
Forgotten  Man  is  not  seldom  a  woman. " 


Trice  10  Qnts 


Yale  University  Press  *  New  Haven  Connecticut 


Reprinted  from 
The  Forgotten  Man  and  Other  Essays 
By  William  Graham  Sumner 
Copyright  1919  by  Yale  University  Press 


A  COLLECTION  OF  BOOKS 
ON  LIBERTY  AND  RELATED  SUBJECTS 
SELECTED  AND  PRESENTED  BY 
JASPER  E.  CRANE 


JC585 


THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN 

In  1883  William  Graham  Sumner,  then  Professor  of  Po- 
litical and  Social  Science  in  Yale  University,  delivered  his 
memorable  speech  on  The  Forgotten  Man.  The  ad- 
dress, in  its  original  form,  is  here  reprinted. 

I PROPOSE  to  discuss  one  of  the  most  subtle  and 
widespread  social  fallacies.  It  consists  in  the  impres- 
sion made  on  the  mind  for  the  time  being  by  a  particular 
fact,  or  by  the  interests  of  a  particular  group  of  persons, 
to  which  attention  is  directed  while  other  facts  or  the  inter- 
ests of  other  persons  are  entirely  left  out  of  account.  I 
shall  give  a  number  of  instances  and  illustrations  of  this 
in  a  moment,  and  I  cannot  expect  you  to  understand  what 
is  meant  from  an  abstract  statement  until  these  illustrations 
are  before  you,  but  just  by  way  of  a  general  illustration 
I  will  put  one  or  two  cases. 

Whenever  a  pestilence  like  yellow  fever  breaks  out  in 
any  city,  our  attention  is  especially  attracted  towards  it, 
and  our  sympathies  are  excited  for  the  sufferers.  If  con- 
tributions are  called  for,  we  readily  respond.  Yet  the 
number  of  persons  who  die  prematurely  from  consumption 
every  year  greatly  exceeds  the  deaths  from  yellow  fever 
or  any  similar  disease  when  it  occurs,  and  the  suffering 
entailed  by  consumption  is  very  much  greater.  The  suf- 
fering from  consumption,  however,  never  constitutes  a 
public  question  or  a  subject  of  social  discussion.  If  an 
inundation  takes  place  anywhere,  constituting  a  public 
calamity  (and  an  inundation  takes  place  somewhere  in 
the  civilized  world  nearly  every  year),  public  attention  is 
attracted  and  public  appeals  are  made,  but  the  losses  by 
great  inundations  must  be  insignificant  compared  with  the 
losses  by  runaway  horses,  which,  taken  separately,  scarcely 
obtain  mention  in  a  local  newspaper.    In  hard  times  in- 

l 


2  The  Forgotten  Man 


solvent  debtors  are  a  large  class.  They  constitute  an 
interest  and  are  able  to  attract  public  attention,  so  that 
social  philosophers  discuss  their  troubles  and  legislatures 
plan  measures  of  relief.  Insolvent  debtors,  however,  are 
an  insignificant  body  compared  with  the  victims  of  common- 
place misfortune,  or  accident,  who  are  isolated,  scattered, 
ungrouped  and  ungeneralized,  and  so  are  never  made  the 
object  of  discussion  or  relief.  In  seasons  of  ordinary 
prosperity,  persons  who  become  insolvent  have  to  get  out 
of  their  troubles  as  they  can.  They  have  no  hope  of  relief 
from  the  legislature.  The  number  of  insolvents  during  a 
series  of  years  of  general  prosperity,  and  their  losses,  greatly 
exceed  the  number  and  losses  during  a  special  period  of 
distress. 

These  illustrations  bring  out  only  one  side  of  my  sub- 
ject, and  that  only  partially.  It  is  when  we  come  to 
the  proposed  measures  of  relief  for  the  evils  which  have 
caught  public  attention  that  we  reach  the  real  subject 
which  deserves  our  attention.  As  soon  as  A  observes  some- 
thing which  seems  to  him  to  be  wrong,  from  which  X  is 
suffering,  A  talks  it  over  with  B,  and  A  and  B  then  propose 
to  get  a  law  passed  to  remedy  the  evil  and  help  X.  Their 
law  always  proposes  to  determine  what  C  shall  do  for  X 
or,  in  the  better  case,  what  A,  B  and  C  shall  do  for  X.  As 
for  A  and  B,  who  get  a  law  to  make  themselves  do  for  X 
what  they  are  willing  to  do  for  him,  we  have  nothing  to  say 
except  that  they  might  better  have  done  it  without  any 
law,  but  what  I  want  to  do  is  to  look  up  C.  I  want  to 
show  you  what  manner  of  man  he  is.  I  call  him  the 
Forgotten  Man.  Perhaps  the  appellation  is  not  strictly 
correct.  He  is  the  man  who  never  is  thought  of.  He  is 
the  victim  of  the  reformer,  social  speculator  and  philan- 
thropist, and  I  hope  to  show  you  before  I  get  through  that 
he  deserves  your  notice  both  for  his  character  and  for  the 
many  burdens  which  are  laid  upon  him. 


The  Forgotten  Man  3 


No  doubt  one  great  reason  for  the  phenomenon  which  I 
bring  to  your  attention  is  the  passion  for  reflection  and 
generalization  which  marks  our  period.  Since  the  printing 
press  has  come  into  such  wide  use,  we  have  all  been  en- 
couraged to  philosophize  about  things  in  a  way  which  was 
unknown  to  our  ancestors.  They  lived  their  lives  out  in 
positive  contact  with  actual  cases  as  they  arose.  They 
had  little  of  this  analysis,  introspection,  reflection  and 
speculation  which  have  passed  into  a  habit  and  almost 
into  a  disease  with  us.  Of  all  things  which  tempt  to  gener- 
alization and  to  philosophizing,  social  topics  stand  foremost. 
Each  one  of  us  gets  some  experience  of  social  forces.  Each 
one  has  some  chance  for  observation  of  social  phenomena. 
There  is  certainly  no  domain  in  which  generalization  is 
easier.  There  is  nothing  about  which  people  dogmatize 
more  freely.  Even  men  of  scientific  training  in  some 
department  in  which  they  would  not  tolerate  dogmatism 
at  all  will  not  hesitate  to  dogmatize  in  the  most  reckless 
manner  about  social  topics.  The  truth  is,  however,  that 
science,  as  yet,  has  won  less  control  of  social  phenomena 
than  of  any  other  class  of  phenomena.  The  most  complex 
and  difficult  subject  which  we  now  have  to  study  is  the 
constitution  of  human  society,  the  forces  which  operate  in 
it,  and  the  laws  by  which  they  act,  and  we  know  less  about 
these  things  than  about  any  others  which  demand  our 
attention.  In  such  a  state  of  things,  over-hasty  generaliza- 
tion is  sure  to  be  extremely  mischievous.  You  cannot  take 
up  a  magazine  pr  newspaper  without  being  struck  by  the 
feverish  interest  with  which  social  topics  and  problems  are 
discussed,  and  if  you  were  a  student  of  social  science,  you 
would  find  in  almost  all  these  discussions  evidence,  not 
only  that  the  essential  preparation  for  the  discussion  is 
wanting,  but  that  the  disputants  do  not  even  know  that 
there  is  any  preparation  to  be  gained.  Consequently  we 
are  bewildered  by  contradictory  dogmatizing.    We  find  in 


4  The  Forgotten  Man 


all  these  discussions  only  the  application  of  pet  notions  and 
the  clashing  of  contradictory  "views."  Remedies  are 
confidently  proposed  for  which  there  is  no  guarantee  offered 
except  that  the  person  who  prescribes  the  remedy  says  that 
he  is  sure  it  will  work.  We  hear  constantly  of  "reform," 
and  the  reformers  turn  out  to  be  people  who  do  not  like 
things  as  they  are  and  wish  that  they  could  be  made  nicer. 
We  hear  a  great  many  exhortations  to  make  progress  from 
people  who  do  not  know  in  what  direction  they  want  to  go. 
Consequently  social  reform  is  the  most  barren  and  tire- 
some subject  of  discussion  amongst  us,  except  aesthetics. 

I  suppose  that  the  first  chemists  seemed  to  be  very  hard- 
hearted and  unpoetical  persons  when  they  scouted  the 
glorious  dream  of  the  alchemists  that  there  must  be  some 
process  for  turning  base  metals  into  gold.  I  suppose  that 
the  men  who  first  said,  in  plain,  cold  assertion,  there  is  no 
fountain  of  eternal  youth,  seemed  to  be  the  most  cruel  and 
cold-hearted  adversaries  of  human  happiness.  I  know  that 
the  economists  who  say  that  if  we  could  transmute  lead 
into  gold,  it  would  certainly  do  us  no  good  and  might  do 
great  harm,  are  still  regarded  as  unworthy  of  belief.  Do 
not  the  money  articles  of  the  newspapers  yet  ring  with  the 
doctrine  that  we  are  getting  rich  when  we  give  cotton  and 
wheat  for  gold  rather  than  when  we  give  cotton  and  wheat 
for  iron? 

Let  us  put  down  now  the  cold,  hard  fact  and  look  at  it 
just  as  it  is.  There  is  no  device  whatever  to  be  invented 
for  securing  happiness  without  industry,  economy,  and 
virtue.  W7e  are  yet  in  the  empirical  stage  as  regards  all 
our  social  devices.  We  have  done  something  in  science  and 
art  in  the  domain  of  production,  transportation  and  ex- 
change. But  when  you  come  to  the  laws  of  the  social 
order,  we  know  very  little  about  them.  Our  laws  and 
institutions  by  which  we  attempt  to  regulate  our  lives  under 
the  laws  of  nature  which  control  society  are  merely  a  series 


The  Forgotten  Man  5 


of  haphazard  experiments.  We  come  into  collision  with 
the  laws  and  are  not  intelligent  enough  to  understand 
wherein  we  are  mistaken  and  how  to  correct  our  errors. 
We  persist  in  our  experiments  instead  of  patiently  setting 
about  the  study  of  the  laws  and  facts  in  order  to  see  where 
we  are  wrong.  Traditions  and  formulae  have  a  dominion 
over  us  in  legislation  and  social  customs  which  we  seem 
unable  to  break  or  even  to  modify. 

For  my  present  purpose  I  ask  your  attention  for  a  few 
moments  to  the  notion  of  liberty,  because  the  Forgotten 
Man  would  no  longer  be  forgotten  where  there  was  true 
liberty.  You  will  say  that  you  know  what  liberty  is. 
There  is  no  term  of  more  common  or  prouder  use.  None 
is  more  current,  as  if  it  were  quite  beyond  the  need  of 
definition.  Even  as  I  write,  however,  I  find  in  a  leading 
review  a  new  definition  of  civil  liberty.  Civil  liberty  the 
writer  declares  to  be  "the  result  of  the  restraint  exercised 
by  the  sovereign  people  on  the  more  powerful  individuals 
and  classes  of  the  community,  preventing  them  from  availing 
themselves  of  the  excess  of  their  power  to  the  detriment  of 
the  other  classes."  You  notice  here  the  use  of  the  words 
"sovereign  people"  to  designate  a  class  of  the  population, 
not  the  nation  as  a  political  and  civil  whole.  Wherever 
"people"  is  used  in  such  a  sense,  there  is  always  fallacy. 
Furthermore,  you  will  recognize  in  this  definition  a  very 
superficial  and  fallacious  construction  of  English  con- 
stitutional history.  The  writer  goes  on  to  elaborate  that 
construction  and  he  comes  out  at  last  with  the  conclusion 
that  "a  government  by  the  people  can,  in  no  case,  become 
a  paternal  government,  since  its  law-makers  are  its  manda- 
taries and  servants  carrying  out  its  will,  and  not  its  fathers 
or  its  masters."  This,  then,  is  the  point  at  which  he 
desires  to  arrive,  and  he  has  followed  a  familiar  device  in 
setting  up  a  definition  to  start  with  which  would  produce 
the  desired  deduction  at  the  end. 


6  The  Forgotten  Man 


In  the  definition  the  word  "people"  was  used  for  a 
class  or  section  of  the  population.  It  is  now  asserted 
that  if  that  section  rules,  there  can  be  no  paternal,  that 
is,  undue,  government.  That  doctrine,  however,  is  the 
very  opposite  of  liberty  and  contains  the  most  vicious 
error  possible  in  politics.  The  truth  is  that  cupidity, 
selfishness,  envy,  malice,  lust,  vindictiveness,  are  constant 
vices  of  human  nature.  They  are  not  confined  to  classes 
or  to  nations  or  particular  ages  of  the  world.  They  pre- 
sent themselves  in  the  palace,  in  the  parliament,  in  the 
academy,  in  the  church,  in  the  workshop,  and  in  the 
hovel.  They  appear  in  autocracies,  theocracies,  aristoc- 
racies, democracies,  and  ochlocracies  all  alike.  They 
change  their  masks  somewhat  from  age  to  age  and  from  one 
form  of  society  to  another.  All  history  is  only  one  long 
story  to  this  effect:  men  have  struggled  for  power  over 
their  fellow-men  in  order  that  they  might  win  the  joys  of 
earth  at  the  expense  of  others  and  might  shift  the  burdens 
of  life  from  their  own  shoulders  upon  those  of  others.  It  is 
true  that,  until  this  time,  the  proletariat,  the  mass  of 
mankind,  have  rarely  had  the  power  and  they  have  not 
made  such  a  record  as  kings  and  nobles  and  priests  have 
made  of  the  abuses  they  would  perpetrate  against  their 
fellow-men  when  they  could  and  dared.  But  what  folly 
it  is  to  think  that  vice  and  passion  are  limited  by  classes, 
that  liberty  consists  only  in  taking  power  away  from  nobles 
and  priests  and  giving  it  to  artisans  and  peasants  and  that 
these  latter  will  never  abuse  it!  They  will  abuse  it  just  as 
all  others  have  done  unless  they  are  put  under  checks  and 
guarantees,  and  there  can  be  no  civil  liberty  anywhere 
unless  rights  are  guaranteed  against  all  abuses,  as  well  from 
proletarians  as  from  generals,  aristocrats,  and  ecclesiastics. 

Now  what  has  been  amiss  in  all  the  old  arrangements? 
The  evils  of  the  old  military  and  aristocratic  governments 
was  that  some  men  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  other  men's  labor; 


The  Forgotten  Man  7 


that  some  persons'  lives,  rights,  interests  and  happiness 
were  sacrificed  to  other  persons'  cupidity  and  lust.  What 
have  our  ancestors  been  striving  for,  under  the  name  of 
civil  liberty,  for  the  last  five  hundred  years?  They  have 
been  striving  to  bring  it  about  that  each  man  and  woman 
might  live  out  his  or  her  life  according  to  his  or  her  own 
notions  of  happiness  and  up  to  the  measure  of  his  or  her 
own  virtue  and  wisdom.  How  have  they  sought  to  accom- 
plish this?  They  have  sought  to  accomplish  it  by  setting 
aside  all  arbitrary  personal  or  class  elements  and  introducing 
the  reign  of  law  and  the  supremacy  of  constitutional  institu- 
tions like  the  jury,  the  habeas  corpus,  the  independent 
judiciary,  the  separation  of  church  and  state,  and  the 
ballot.  Note  right  here  one  point  which  will  be  important 
and  valuable  when  I  come  more  especially  to  the  case  of 
the  Forgotten  Man :  whenever  you  talk  of  liberty,  you  must 
have  two  men  in  mind.  The  sphere  of  rights  of  one  of  these 
men  trenches  upon  that  of  the  other,  and  whenever  you 
establish  liberty  for  the  one,  you  repress  the  other.  When- 
ever absolute  sovereigns  are  subjected  to  constitutional 
restraints,  you  always  hear  them  remonstrate  that  their 
liberty  is  curtailed.  So  it  is,  in  the  sense  that  their  power 
of  determining  what  shall  be  done  in  the  state  is  limited 
below  what  it  was  before  and  the  similar  power  of  other 
organs  in  the  state  is  widened.  Whenever  the  privileges 
of  an  aristocracy  are  curtailed,  there  is  heard  a  similar 
complaint.  The  truth  is  that  the  line  of  limit  or  demarca- 
tion between  classes  as  regards  civil  power  has  been  moved 
and  what  has  been  taken  from  one  class  is  given  to  another. 

We  may  now,  then,  advance  a  step  in  our  conception  of 
civil  liberty.  It  is  the  status  in  which  we  find  the  true 
adjustment  of  rights  between  classes  and  individuals. 
Historically,  the  conception  of  civil  liberty  has  been  con- 
stantly changing.  The  notion  of  rights  changes  from  one 
generation  to  another  and  the  conception  of  civil  liberty 


8  The  Forgotten  Man 


changes  with  it.  If  we  try  to  formulate  a  true  definition  of 
civil  liberty  as  an  ideal  thing  towards  which  the  develop- 
ment of  political  institutions  is  all  the  time  tending,  it 
would  be  this:  Civil  liberty  is  the  status  of  the  man  who  is 
guaranteed  by  law  and  civil  institutions  the  exclusive  em- 
ployment of  all  his  own  powers  for  his  own  welfare. 

This  definition  of  liberty  or  civil  liberty,  you  see,  deals 
only  with  concrete  and  actual  relations  of  the  civil  order. 
There  is  some  sort  of  a  poetical  and  metaphysical  notion  of 
liberty  afloat  in  men's  minds  which  some  people  dream 
about  but  which  nobody  can  define.  In  popular  language 
it  means  that  a  man  may  do  as  he  has  a  mind  to.  When 
people  get  this  notion  of  liberty  into  their  heads  and  combine 
with  it  the  notion  that  they  live  in  a  free  country  and  ought 
to  have  liberty,  they  sometimes  make  strange  demands 
upon  the  state.  If  liberty  means  to  be  able  to  do  as  you 
have  a  mind  to,  there  is  no  such  thing  in  this  world.  Can 
the  Czar  of  Russia  do  as  he  has  a  mind  to?  Can  the  Pope 
do  as  he  has.  a  mind  to?  Can  the  President  of  the  United 
States  do  as  he  has  a  mind  to?  Can  Rothschild  do  as  he 
has  a  mind  to?  Could  a  Humboldt  or  a  Faraday  do  as  he 
had  a  mind  to?  Could  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Raphael  do  as 
he  had  a  mind  to?  Can  a  tramp  do  as  he  has  a  mind  to? 
Where  is  the  man,  whatever  his  station,  possessions,  or 
talents,  who  can  get  any  such  liberty?  There  is  none. 
There  is  a  doctrine  floating  about  in  our  literature  that  we 
are  born  to  the  inheritance  of  certain  rights.  That  is  an- 
other glorious  dream,  for  it  would  mean  that  there  was 
something  in  this  world  which  we  got  for  nothing.  But 
what  is  the  truth?  We  are  born  into  no  right  whatever  but 
what  has  an  equivalent  and  corresponding  duty  right  along- 
side of  it.  There  is  no  such  thing  on  this  earth  as  something 
for  nothing.  Whatever  we  inherit  of  wealth,  knowledge, 
or  institutions  from  the  past  has  been  paid  for  by  the  labor 
and  sacrifice  of  preceding  generations;  and  the  fact  that 


The  Forgotten  Man  9 


these  gains  are  carried  on,  that  the  race  lives  and  that  the 
race  can,  at  least  within  some  cycle,  accumulate  its  gains, 
is  one  of  the  facts  on  which  civilization  rests.  The  law  of 
the  conservation  of  energy  is  not  simply  a  law  of  physics; 
it  is  a  law  of  the  whole  moral  universe,  and  the  order  and 
truth  of  all  things  conceivable  by  man  depends  upon  it. 
If  there  were  any  such  liberty  as  that  of  doing  as  you  have 
a  mind  to,  the  human  race  would  be  condemned  to  ever- 
lasting anarchy  and  war  as  these  erratic  wills  crossed  and 
clashed  against  each  other.  True  liberty  lies  in  the  equi- 
librium of  rights  and  duties,  producing  peace,  order,  and 
harmony.  As  I  have  defined  it,  it  means  that  a  man's 
right  to  take  power  and  wealth  out  of  the  social  product  is 
measured  by  the  energy  and  wisdom  which  he  has  con- 
tributed to  the  social  effort. 

Now  if  I  have  set  this  idea  before  you  with  any  distinct- 
ness and  success,  you  see  that  civil  liberty  consists  of  a  set 
of  civil  institutions  and  laws  which  are  arranged  to  act  as 
impersonally  as  possible.  It  does  not  consist  in  majority 
rule  or  in  universal  suffrage  or  in  elective  systems  at  all. 
These  are  devices  which  are  good  or  better  just  in  the 
degree  in  which  they  secure  liberty.  The  institutions  of 
civil  liberty  leave  each  man  to  run  his  career  in  life  in  his 
own  way,  only  guaranteeing  to  him  that  whatever  he  does 
in  the  way  of  industry,  economy,  prudence,  sound  judg- 
ment, etc.,  shall  redound  to  his  own  welfare  and  shall  not 
be  diverted  to  some  one  else's  benefit.  Of  course  it  is  a 
necessary  corollary  that  each  man  shall  also  bear  the 
penalty  of  his  own  vices  and  his  own  mistakes.  If  I  want 
to  be  free  from  any  other  man's  dictation,  I  must  under- 
stand that  I  can  have  no  other  man  under  my  control. 

Now  with  these  definitions  and  general  conceptions  in 
mind,  let  us  turn  to  the  special  class  of  facts  to  which,  as 
I  said  at  the  outset,  I  invite  your  attention.  We  see  that 
under  a  regime  of  liberty  and  equality  before  the  law,  we 


10  The  Forgotten  Man 


get  the  highest  possible  development  of  independence, 
self-reliance,  individual  energy,  and  enterprise,  but  we  get 
these  high  social  virtues  at  the  expense  of  the  old  senti- 
mental ties  which  used  to  unite  baron  and  retainer,  master 
and  servant,  sage  and  disciple,  comrade  and  comrade. 
We  are  agreed  that  the  son  shall  not  be  disgraced  even  by 
the  crime  of  the  father,  much  less  by  the  crime  of  a  more 
distant  relative.  It  is  a  humane  and  rational  view  of 
things  that  each  life  shall  stand  for  itself  alone  and  not  be 
weighted  by  the  faults  of  another,  but  it  is  useless  to  deny 
that  this  view  of  things  is  possible  only  in  a  society  where 
the  ties  of  kinship  have  lost  nearly  all  the  intensity  of 
poetry  and  romance  which  once  characterized  them.  The 
ties  of  sentiment  and  sympathy  also  have  faded  out.  We 
have  come,  under  the  regime  of  liberty  and  equality  before 
the  law,  to  a  form  of  society  which  is  based  not  on  status, 
but  on  free  contract.  Now  a  society  based  on  status  is 
one  in  which  classes,  ranks,  interests,  industries,  guilds, 
associations,  etc.,  hold  men  in  permanent  relations  to  each 
other.  Custom  and  prescription  create,  under  status,  ties, 
the  strength  of  which  lies  in  sentiment.  Feeble  remains  of 
this  may  be  seen  in  some  of  our  academical  societies  to-day, 
and  it  is  unquestionably  a  great  privilege  and  advantage 
for  any  man  in  our  society  to  win  an  experience  of  the 
sentiments  which  belong  to  a  strong  and  close  association, 
just  because  the  chances  for  such  experience  are  nowadays 
very  rare.  In  a  society  based  on  free  contract,  men  come 
together  as  free  and  independent  parties  to  an  agreement 
which  is  of  mutual  advantage.  The  relation  is  rational, 
even  rationalistic.  It  is  not  poetical.  It  does  not  exist 
from  use  and  custom,  but  for  reasons  given,  and  it  does  not 
endure  by  prescription  but  ceases  when  the  reason  for  it 
ceases.  There  is  no  sentiment  in  it  at  all.  The  fact  is 
that,  under  the  regime  of  liberty  and  equality  before  the 
law,  there  is  no  place  for  sentiment  in  trade  or  politics  as 


The  Forgotten  Man  1 1 


public  interests.  Sentiment  is  thrown  back  into  private 
life,  into  personal  relations,  and  if  ever  it  comes  into  a 
public  discussion  of  an  impersonal  and  general  public 
question  it  always  produces  mischief. 

Now  you  know  that  "the  poor  and  the  weak"  are  con- 
tinually put  forward  as  objects  of  public  interest  and  public 
obligation.  In  the  appeals  which  are  made,  the  terms 
"the  poor"  and  "the  weak"  are  used  as  if  they  were  terms 
of  exact  definition.  Except  the  pauper,  that  is  to  say, 
the  man  who  cannot  earn  his  living  or  pay  his  way,  there 
is  no  possible  definition  of  a  poor  man.  Except  a  man  who 
is  incapacitated  by  vice  or  by  physical  infirmity,  there  is  no 
definition  of  a  weak  man.  The  paupers  and  the  physically 
incapacitated  are  an  inevitable  charge  on  society.  About 
them  no  more  need  be  said.  But  the  weak  who  constantly 
arouse  the  pity  of  humanitarians  and  philanthropists  are 
the  shiftless,  the  imprudent,  the  negligent,  the  impractical, 
and  the  inefficient,  or  they  are  the  idle,  the  intemperate,  the 
extravagant,  and  the  vicious.  Now  the  troubles  of  these 
persons  are  constantly  forced  upon  public  attention,  as  if 
they  and  their  interests  deserved  especial  consideration, 
and  a  great  portion  of  all  organized  and  unorganized  effort 
for  the  common  welfare  consists  in  attempts  to  relieve  these 
classes  of  people.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  now  as 
saying  that  nothing  ought  to  be  done  for  these  people  by 
those  who  are  stronger  and  wiser.  That  is  not  my  point. 
What  I  want  to  do  is  to  point  out  the  thing  which  is  over- 
looked and  the  error  which  is  made  in  all  these  charitable 
efforts.  The  notion  is  accepted  as  if  it  were  not  open  to 
any  question  that  if  you  help  the  inefficient  and  vicious  you 
may  gain  something  for  society  or  you  may  not,  but  that 
you  lose  nothing.  This  is  a  complete  mistake.  Whatever 
capital  you  divert  to  the  support  of  a  shiftless  and  good- 
for-nothing  person  is  so  much  diverted  from  some  other 
employment,  and  that  means  from  somebody  else.  I 


1 2  The  Forgotten  Man 


would  spend  any  conceivable  amount  of  zeal  and  eloquence 
if  I  possessed  it  to  try  to  make  people  grasp  this  idea. 
Capital  is  force.  If  it  goes  one  way  it  cannot  go  another. 
If  you  give  a  loaf  to  a  pauper  you  cannot  give  the  same 
loaf  to  a  laborer.  Now  this  other  man  who  would  have 
got  it  but  for  the  charitable  sentiment  which  bestowed  it 
on  a  worthless  member  of  society  is  the  Forgotten  Man. 
The  philanthropists  and  humanitarians  have  their  minds 
all  full  of  the  wretched  and  miserable  whose  case  appeals 
to  compassion,  attacks  the  sympathies,  takes  possession  of 
the  imagination,  and  excites  the  emotions.  They  push  on 
towards  the  quickest  and  easiest  remedies  and  they  forget 
the  real  victim. 

Now  who  is  the  Forgotten  Man?  He  is  the  simple, 
honest  laborer,  ready  to  earn  his  living  by  productive 
work.  We  pass  him  by  because  he  is  independent,  self- 
supporting,  and  asks  no  favors.  He  does  not  appeal  to 
the  emotions  or  excite  the  sentiments.  He  only  wants 
to  make  a  contract  and  fulfill  it,  with  respect  on  both 
sides  and  favor  on  neither  side.  He  must  get  his  living 
out  of  the  capital  of  the  country.  The  larger  the  capital 
is,  the  better  living  he  can  get.  Every  particle  of  capital 
which  is  wasted  on  the  vicious,  the  idle,  and  the  shiftless  is 
so  much  taken  from  the  capital  available  to  reward  the 
independent  and  productive  laborer.  But  we  stand  with 
our  backs  to  the  independent  and  productive  laborer  all 
the  time.  We  do  not  remember  him  because  he  makes  no 
clamor;  but  I  appeal  to  you  whether  he  is  not  the  man  who 
ought  to  be  remembered  first  of  all,  and  whether,  on  any 
sound  social  theory,  we  ought  not  to  protect  him  against 
the  burdens  of  the  good-for-nothing.  In  these  last  years  I 
have  read  hundreds  of  articles  and  heard  scores  of  sermons 
and  speeches  which  were  really  glorifications  of  the  good- 
for-nothing,  as  if  these  were  the  charge  of  society,  recom- 
mended by  right  reason  to  its  care  and  protection.  We 


The  Forgotten  Man  13 


are  addressed  all  the  time  as  if  those  who  are  respectable 
were  to  blame  because  some  are  not  so,  and  as  if  there  were 
an  obligation  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  done  their 
duty  towards  those  who  have  not  done  their  duty.  Every 
man  is  bound  to  take  care  of  himself  and  his  family  and  to 
do  his  share  in  the  work  of  society.  It  is  totally  false  that 
one  who  has  done  so  is  bound  to  bear  the  care  and  charge 
of  those  who  are  wretched  because  they  have  not  done  so. 
The  silly  popular  notion  is  that  the  beggars  live  at  the 
expense  of  the  rich,  but  the  truth  is  that  those  who  eat  and 
produce  not,  live  at  the  expense  of  those  who  labor  and 
produce.  The  next  time  that  you  are  tempted  to  subscribe 
a  dollar  to  a  charity,  I  do  not  tell  you  not  to  do  it,  because 
after  you  have  fairly  considered  the  matter,  you  may  think 
it  right  to  do  it,  but  I  do  ask  you  to  stop  and  remember 
the  Forgotten  Man  and  understand  that  if  you  put  your 
dollar  in  the  savings  bank  it  will  go  to  swell  the  capital  of 
the  country  which  is  available  for  division  amongst  those 
who,  while  they  earn  it,  will  reproduce  it  with  increase. 

Let  us  now  go  on  to  another  class  of  cases.  There  are  a 
great  many  schemes  brought  forward  for  "improving  the 
condition  of  the  working  classes."  I  have  shown  already 
that  a  free  man  cannot  take  a  favor.  One  who  takes  a 
favor  or  submits  to  patronage  demeans  himself.  He  falls 
under  obligation.  He  cannot  be  free  and  he  cannot  assert 
a  station  of  equality  with  the  man  who  confers  the  favor  on 
him.  The  only  exception  is  where  there  are  exceptional 
bonds  of  affection  or  friendship,  that  is,  where  the  senti- 
mental relation  supersedes  the  free  relation.  Therefore, 
in  a  country  which  is  a  free  democracy,  all  propositions  to 
do  something  for  the  working  classes  have  an  air  of  patronage 
and  superiority  which  is  impertinent  and  out  of  place.  No 
one  can  do  anything  for  anybody  else  unless  he  has  a  surplus 
of  energy  to  dispose  of  after  taking  care  of  himself.  In  the 
United  States,  the  working  classes,  technically  so  called, 


14  The  Forgotten  Man 


are  the  strongest  classes.  It  is  they  who  have  a  surplus  to 
dispose  of  if  anybody  has.  Why  should  anybody  else  offer 
to  take  care  of  them  or  to  serve  them?  They  can  get  what- 
ever they  think  worth  having  and,  at  any  rate,  if  they  are 
free  men  in  a  free  state,  it  is  ignominious  and  unbecoming 
to  introduce  fashions  of  patronage  and  favoritism  here. 
A  man  who,  by  superior  education  and  experience  of  busi- 
ness, is  in  a  position  to  advise  a  struggling  man  of  the 
wages  class,  is  certainly  held  to  do  so  and  will,  I  believe, 
always  be  willing  and  glad  to  do  so;  but  this  sort  of  activity 
lies  in  the  range  of  private  and  personal  relations. 

I  now,  however,  desire  to  direct  attention  to  the  public, 
general,  and  impersonal  schemes,  and  I  point  out  the  fact 
that,  if  you  undertake  to  lift  anybody,  you  must  have  a 
fulcrum  or  point  of  resistance.  All  the  elevation  you  give 
to  one  must  be  gained  by  an  equivalent  depression  on  some 
one  else.  The  question  of  gain  to  society  depends  upon  the 
balance  of  the  account,  as  regards  the  position  of  the  persons 
who  undergo  the  respective  operations.  But  nearly  all  the 
schemes  for  "improving  the  condition  of  the  working 
man"  involve  an  elevation  of  some  working  men  at  the 
expense  of  other  working  men.  When  you  expend  capital 
or  labor  to  elevate  some  persons  who  come  within  the 
sphere  of  your  influence,  you  interfere  in  the  conditions  of 
competition.  The  advantage  of  some  is  won  by  an  equiva- 
lent loss  of  others.  The  difference  is  not  brought  about 
by  the  energy  and  effort  of  the  persons  themselves.  If  it 
were,  there  would  be  nothing  to  be  said  about  it,  for  we 
constantly  see  people  surpass  others  in  the  rivalry  of  life 
and  carry  off  the  prizes  which  the  others  must  do  without. 
In  the  cases  I  am  discussing,  the  difference  is  brought  about 
by  an  interference  which  must  be  partial,  arbitrary,  acci- 
dental, controlled  by  favoritism  and  personal  preference. 
I  do  not  say,  in  this  case,  either,  that  we  ought  to  do  no 
work  of  this  kind.    On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  the 


The  Forgotten  Man  1 5 


arguments  for  it  quite  outweigh,  in  many  cases,  the  argu- 
ments against  it.  What  I  desire,  again,  is  to  bring  out  the 
forgotten  element  which  we  always  need  to  remember  in 
order  to  make  a  wise  decision  as  to  any  scheme  of  this 
kind.  I  want  to  call  to  mind  the  Forgotten  Man,  because, 
in  this  case  also,  if  we  recall  him  and  go  to  look  for  him,  we 
shall  find  him  patiently  and  perseveringly,  manfully  and 
independently  struggling  against  adverse  circumstances 
without  complaining  or  begging.  If,  then,  we  are  led  to 
heed  the  groaning  and  complaining  of  others  and  to  take 
measures  for  helping  these  others,  we  shall,  before  we  know 
it,  push  down  this  man  who  is  trying  to  help  himself. 

Let  us  take  another  class  of  cases.  So  far  we  have  said 
nothing  about  the  abuse  of  legislation.  We  all  seem  to  be 
under  the  delusion  that  the  rich  pay  the  taxes.  Taxes  are 
not  thrown  upon  the  consumers  with  any  such  directness 
and  completeness  as  is  sometimes  assumed;  but  that,  in 
ordinary  states  of  the  market,  taxes  on  houses  fall,  for  the 
most  part,  on  the  tenants  and  that  taxes  on  commodities 
fall,  for  the  most  part,  on  the  consumers,  is  beyond  question. 
Now  the  state  and  municipality  go  to  great  expense  to 
support  policemen  and  sheriffs  and  judicial  officers,  to 
protect  people  against  themselves,  that  is,  against  the 
results  of  their  own  folly,  vice,  and  recklessness.  Who 
pays  for  it?  Undoubtedly  the  people  who  have  not  been 
guilty  of  folly,  vice,  or  recklessness.  Out  of  nothing  comes 
nothing.  We  cannot  collect  taxes  from  people  who  produce 
nothing  and  save  nothing.  The  people  who  have  some- 
thing to  tax  must  be  those  who  have  produced  and  saved. 

When  you  see  a  drunkard  in  the  gutter,  you  are  dis- 
gusted, but  you  pity  him.  When  a  policeman  comes  and 
picks  him  up  you  are  satisfied.  You  say  that  "society" 
has  interfered  to  save  the  drunkard  from  perishing.  Society 
is  a  fine  word,  and  it  saves  us  the  trouble  of  thinking  to  say 
that  society  acts.    The  truth  is  that  the  policeman  is  paid 


1 6  The  Forgotten  Man 


by  somebody,  and  when  we  talk  about  society  we  forget 
who  it  is  that  pays.  It  is  the  Forgotten  Man  again.  It  is 
the  industrious  workman  going  home  from  a  hard  day's 
work,  whom  you  pass  without  noticing,  who  is  mulcted 
of  a  percentage  of  his  day's  earnings  to  hire  a  policeman  to 
save  the  drunkard  from  himself.  All  the  public  expenditure 
to  prevent  vice  has  the  same  effect.  Vice  is  its  own  curse. 
If  we  let  nature  alone,  she  cures  vice  by  the  most  frightful 
penalties.  It  may  shock  you  to  hear  me  say  it,  but  when 
you  get  over  the  shock,  it  will  do  you  good  to  think  of  it: 
a  drunkard  in  the  gutter  is  just  where  he  ought  to  be. 
Nature  is  working  away  at  him  to  get  him  out  of  the  way, 
just  as  she  sets  up  her  processes  of  dissolution  to  remove 
whatever  is  a  failure  in  its  line.  Gambling  and  less  men- 
tionable  vices  all  cure  themselves  by  the  ruin  and  dissolu- 
tion of  their  victims.  Nine-tenths  of  our  measures  for 
preventing  vice  are  really  protective  towards  it,  because 
they  ward  off  the  penalty.  "Ward  off,"  I  say,  and  that  is 
the  usual  way  of  looking  at  it;  but  is  the  penalty  really 
annihilated?  By  no  means.  It  is  turned  into  police  and 
court  expenses  and  spread  over  those  who  have  resisted 
vice.  It  is  the  Forgotten  Man  again  who  has  been  sub- 
jected to  the  penalty  while  our  minds  were  full  of  the 
drunkards,  spendthrifts,  gamblers,  and  other  victims  of 
dissipation.  Who  is,  then,  the  Forgotten  Man?  He  is  the 
clean,  quiet,  virtuous,  domestic  citizen,  who  pays  his  debts 
and  his  taxes  and  is  never  heard  of  out  of  his  little  circle. 
Yet  who  is  there  in  the  society  of  a  civilized  state  who 
deserves  to  be  remembered  and  considered  by  the  legislator 
and  statesman  before  this  man? 

Another  class  of  cases  is  closely  connected  with  this  last. 
There  is  an  apparently  invincible  prejudice  in  people's 
minds  in  favor  of  state  regulation.  All  experience  is  against 
state  regulation  and  in  favor  of  liberty.  The  freer  the 
civil  institutions  are,  the  more  weak  or  mischievous  state 


The  Forgotten  Man  17 


regulation  is.  The  Prussian  bureaucracy  can  do  a  score  of 
things  for  the  citizen  which  no  governmental  organ  in  the 
United  States  can  do;  and,  conversely,  if  we  want  to  be 
taken  care  of  as  Prussians  and  Frenchmen  are,  we  must 
give  up  something  of  our  personal  liberty. 

Now  we  have  a  great  many  well-intentioned  people 
among  us  who  believe  that  they  are  serving  their  country 
when  they  discuss  plans  for  regulating  the  relations  of 
employer  and  employee,  or  the  sanitary  regulations  of 
dwellings,  or  the  construction  of  factories,  or  the  way 
to  behave  on  Sunday,  or  what  people  ought  not  to  eat 
or  drink  or  smoke.  All  this  is  harmless  enough  and  well 
enough  as  a  basis  of  mutual  encouragement  and  mis- 
sionary enterprise,  but  it  is  almost  always  made  a  basis 
of  legislation.  The  reformers  want  to  get  a  majority, 
that  is,  to  get  the  power  of  the  state  and  so  to  make 
other  people  do  what  the  reformers  think  it  right  and 
wise  to  do.  A  and  B  agree  to  spend  Sunday  in  a  cer- 
tain way.  They  get  a  law  passed  to  make  C  pass  it  in 
their  way.  They  determine  to  be  teetotallers  and  they  get 
a  law  passed  to  make  C  be  a  teetotaller  for  the  sake  of  D 
who  is  likely  to  drink  too  much.  Factory  acts  for  women 
and  children  are  right  because  women  and  children  are  not 
on  an  equal  footing  with  men  and  cannot,  therefore,  make 
contracts  properly.  Adult  men,  in  a  free  state,  must  be 
left  to  make  their  own  contracts  and  defend  themselves. 
It  will  not  do  to  say  that  some  men  are  weak  and  unable  to 
make  contracts  any  better  than  women.  Our  civil  institu- 
tions assume  that  all  men  are  equal  in  political  capacity  and 
all  are  given  equal  measure  of  political  power  and  right, 
which  is  not  the  case  with  women  and  children.  If,  then, 
we  measure  political  rights  by  one  theory  and  social  respon- 
sibilities by  another,  we  produce  an  immoral  and  vicious 
relation.  A  and  B,  however,  get  factory  acts  and  other 
acts  passed  regulating  the  relation  of  employers  and  em- 


18  The  Forgotten  Man 


ployee  and  set  armies  of  commissioners  and  inspectors 
traveling  about  to  see  to  things,  instead  of  using  their 
efforts,  if  any  are  needed,  to  lead  the  free  men  to  make 
their  own  conditions  as  to  what  kind  of  factory  buildings 
they  will  work  in,  how  many  hours  they  will  work,  what  they 
will  do  on  Sunday  and  so  on.  The  consequence  is  that 
men  lose  the  true  education  in  freedom  which  is  needed  to 
support  free  institutions.  They  are  taught  to  rely  on 
government  officers  and  inspectors.  The  whole  system  of 
government  inspectors  is  corrupting  to  free  institutions. 
In  England,  the  liberals  used  always  to  regard  state  regula- 
tion with  suspicion,  but  since  they  have  ccme  to  power, 
they  plainly  believe  that  state  regulation  is  a  good  thing  — 
if  they  regulate  —  because,  of  course,  they  want  to  bring 
about  good  things.  In  this  country  each  party  takes 
turns,  according  as  it  is  in  or  out,  in  supporting  or  denounc- 
ing the  non-interference  theory. 

Now,  if  we  have  state  regulation,  what  is  always  for- 
gotten is  this:  Who  pays  for  it?  Who  is  the  victim  of  it? 
There  always  is  a  victim.  The  workmen  who  do  not 
defend  themselves  have  to  pay  for  the  inspectors  who 
defend  them.  The  whole  system  of  social  regulation  by 
boards,  commissioners,  and  inspectors  consists  in  relieving 
negligent  people  of  the  consequences  of  their  negligence  and 
so  leaving  them  to  continue  negligent  without  correction. 
That  system  also  turns  away  from  the  agencies  which  are 
close,  direct,  and  germane  to  the  purpose,  and  seeks  others. 
Now,  if  you  relieve  negligent  people  of  the  consequences  of 
their  negligence,  you  can  only  throw  those  consequences  on 
the  people  who  have  not  been  negligent.  If  you  turn 
away  from  the  agencies  which  are  direct  and  cognate  to 
the  purpose,  you  can  only  employ  other  agencies.  Here, 
then,  you  have  your  Forgotten  Man  again.  The  man 
who  has  been  careful  and  prudent  and  who  wants  to  go  on 
and  reap  his  advantages  for  himself  and  his  children  is 


The  Forgotten  Man  19 


arrested  just  at  that  point,  and  he  is  told  that  he  must  go 
and  take  care  of  some  negligent  employees  in  a  factory  or 
on  a  railroad  who  have  not  provided  precautions  for  them- 
selves or  have  not  forced  their  employers  to  provide  pre- 
cautions, or  negligent  tenants  who  have  not  taken  care  of 
their  own  sanitary  arrangements,  or  negligent  householders 
who  have  not  provided  against  fire,  or  negligent  parents 
who  have  not  sent  their  children  to  school.  If  the  For- 
gotten Man  does  not  go,  he  must  hire  an  inspector  to  go. 
No  doubt  it  is  often  worth  his  while  to  go  or  send,  rather 
than  leave  the  thing  undone,  on  account  of  his  remoter 
interest;  but  what  I  want  to  show  is  that  all  this  is  unjust 
to  the  Forgotten  Man,  and  that  the  reformers  and  phi- 
losophers miss  the  point  entirely  when  they  preach  that  it  is 
his  duty  to  do  all  this  work.  Let  them  preach  to  the 
negligent  to  learn  to  take  care  of  themselves.  Whenever 
A  and  B  put  their  heads  together  and  decide  what  A,  B  and 
C  must  do  for  D,  there  is  never  any  pressure  on  A  and  B. 
They  consent  to  it  and  like  it.  There  is  rarely  any  pressure 
on  D  because  he  does  not  like  it  and  contrives  to  evade  it. 
The  pressure  all  comes  on  C.  Now,  who  is  C?  He  is 
always  the  man  who,  if  let  alone,  would  make  a  reasonable 
use  of  his  liberty  without  abusing  it.  He  would  not  con- 
stitute any  social  problem  at  all  and  would  not  need  any 
regulation.  He  is  the  Forgotten  Man  again,  and  as  soon  as 
he  is  brought  from  his  obscurity  you  see  that  he  is  just  that 
one  amongst  us  who  is  what  we  all  ought  to  be. 

Let  us  look  at  another  case.  I  read  again  and  again 
arguments  to  prove  that  criminals  have  claims  and  rights 
against  society.  Not  long  ago,  I  read  an  account  of  an 
expensive  establishment  for  the  reformation  of  criminals, 
and  I  am  told  that  we  ought  to  reform  criminals,  not  merely 
punish  them  vindictively.  When  I  was  a  young  man,  I 
read  a  great  many  novels  by  Eugene  Sue,  Victor  Hugo, 
and  other  Frenchmen  of  the  school  of  '48,  in  which  the 


20 


The  Forgotten  Man 


badness  of  a  bad  man  is  represented,  not  as  his  fault,  but 
as  the  fault  of  society.  Now,  as  society  consists  of  the  bad 
men  plus  the  good  men,  and  as  the  object  of  this  declaration 
was  to  show  that  the  badness  of  the  bad  men  was  not  the 
fault  of  the  bad  men,  it  remains  that  the  badness  of  the 
bad  men  must  be  the  fault  of  the  good  men.  No  doubt,  it 
is  far  more  consoling  to  the  bad  men  than  even  to  their 
friends  to  reach  the  point  of  this  demonstration. 

Let  us  ask,  now,  for  a  moment,  what  is  the  sense  of 
punishment,  since  a  good  many  people  seem  to  be  quite  in 
a  muddle  about  it.  Every  man  in  society  is  bound  in 
nature  and  reason  to  contribute  to  the  strength  and  welfare 
of  society.  He  ought  to  work,  to  be  peaceful,  honest,  just, 
and  virtuous.  A  criminal  is  a  man  who,  instead  of  working 
with  and  for  society,  turns  his  efforts  against  the  common 
welfare  in  some  way  or  other.  He  disturbs  order,  violates 
harmony,  invades  the  security  and  happiness  of  others, 
wastes  and  destroys  capital.  If  he  is  put  to  death,  it  is 
on  the  ground  that  he  has  forfeited  all  right  to  existence  in 
society  by  the  magnitude  of  his  offenses  against  its  welfare. 
If  he  is  imprisoned,  it  is  simply  a  judgment  of  society  upon 
him  that  he  is  so  mischievous  to  the  society  that  he  must 
be  segregated  from  it.  His  punishment  is  a  warning  to 
him  to  reform  himself,  just  exactly  like  the  penalties  in- 
flicted by  God  and  nature  on  vice.  A  man  who  has  com- 
mitted crime  is,  therefore,  a  burden  on  society  and  an 
injury  to  it.  He  is  a  destructive  and  not  a  productive  force 
and  everybody  is  worse  off  for  his  existence  than  if  he  did 
not  exist.  Whence,  then,  does  he  obtain  a  right  to  be 
taught  or  reformed  at  the  public  expense?  The  whole 
question  of  what  to  do  with  him  is  one  of  expediency,  and 
it  embraces  the  whole  range  of  possible  policies  from  that 
of  execution  to  that  of  education  and  reformation,  but 
when  the  expediency  of  reformatory  attempts  is  discussed 
we  always  forget  the  labor  and  expense  and  who  must  pay. 


The  Forgotten  Man  21 


All  that  the  state  does  for  the  criminal,  beyond  forcing  him 
to  earn  his  living,  is  done  at  the  expense  of  the  industrious 
member  of  society  who  never  costs  the  state  anything  for 
correction  and  discipline.  If  a  man  who  has  gone  astray 
can  be  reclaimed  in  any  way,  no  one  would  hinder  such  a 
work,  but  people  whose  minds  are  full  of  sympathy  and 
interest  for  criminals  and  who  desire  to  adopt  some  sys- 
tematic plans  of  reformatory  efforts  are  only,  once  more, 
trampling  on  the  Forgotten  Man. 

Let  us  look  at  another  case.  If  there  is  a  public  office  to 
be  filled,  of  course  a  great  number  of  persons  come  forward 
as  candidates  for  it.  Many  of  these  persons  are  urged  as 
candidates  on  the  ground  that  they  are  badly  off,  or  that 
they  cannot  support  themselves,  or  that  they  want  to  earn 
a  living  while  educating  themselves,  or  that  they  have 
female  relatives  dependent  on  them,  or  for  some  other 
reason  of  a  similar  kind.  In  other  cases,  candidates  are 
presented  and  urged  on  the  ground  of  their  kinship  to 
somebody,  or  on  account  of  service,  it  may  be  meritorious 
service,  in  some  other  line  than  that  of  the  duty  to  be 
performed.  Men  are  proposed  for  clerkships  on  the  ground 
of  service  in  the  army  twenty  years  ago,  or  for  custom- 
house inspectors  on  the  ground  of  public  services  in  the 
organization  of  political  parties.  If  public  positions  are 
granted  on  these  grounds  of  sentiment  or  favoritism,  the 
abuse  is  to  be  condemned  on  the  ground  of  the  harm  done 
to  the  public  interest;  but  I  now  desire  to  point  out  another 
thing  which  is  constantly  forgotten.  If  you  give  a  position 
to  A,  you  cannot  give  it  to  B.  If  A  is  an  object  of  senti- 
ment or  favoritism  and  not  a  person  fit  and  competent  to 
fulfill  the  duty,  who  is  B?  He  is  somebody  who  has  nothing 
but  merit  on  his  side,  somebody  who  has  no  powerful 
friends,  no  political  influence,  some  quiet,  unobtrusive 
individual  who  has  known  no  other  way  to  secure  the 
chances  of  life  than  simply  to  deserve  them.    Here  we  have 


22  The  Forgotten  Man 


the  Forgotten  Man  again,  and  once  again  we  find  him  worthy 
of  all  respect  and  consideration,  but  passed  by  in  favor  of 
the  noisy,  pushing,  and  incompetent.  Who  ever  remembers 
that  if  you  give  a  place  to  a  man  who  is  unfit  for  it  you  are 
keeping  out  of  it  somebody,  somewhere,  who  is  fit  for  it? 

Let  us  take  another  case.  A  trades-union  is  an  associa- 
tion of  journeymen  in  a  certain  trade  which  has  for  one  of 
its  chief  objects  to  raise  wages  in  that  trade.  This  object 
can  be  accomplished  only  by  drawing  more  capital  into  the 
trade,  or  by  lessening  the  supply  of  labor  in  it.  To  do  the 
latter,  the  trades-unions  limit  the  number  of  apprentices 
who  may  be  admitted  to  the  trade.  In  discussing  this 
device,  people  generally  fix  their  minds  on  the  beneficiaries 
of  this  arrangement.  It  is  desired  by  everybody  that 
wages  should  be  as  high  as  they  can  be  under  the  conditions 
of  industry.  Our  minds  are  directed  by  the  facts  of  the  case 
to  the  men  who  are  in  the  trade  already  and  are  seeking 
their  own  advantage.  Sometimes  people  go  on  to  notice 
the  effects  of  trades-unionism  on  the  employers,  but 
although  employers  are  constantly  vexed  by  it,  it  is  seen 
that  they  soon  count  it  into  the  risks  of  their  business  and 
settle  down  to  it  philosophically.  Sometimes  people  go 
further  then  and  see  that,  if  the  employer  adds  the  trades- 
union  and  strike  risk  to  the  other  risks,  he  submits  to  it 
because  he  has  passed  it  along  upon  the  public  and  that 
the  public  wealth  is  diminished  by  trades-unionism,  which 
is  undoubtedly  the  case.  I  do  not  remember,  however, 
that  I  have  ever  seen  in  print  any  analysis  and  observation 
of  trades-unionism  which  takes  into  account  its  effect  in 
another  direction.  The  effect  on  employers  or  on  the 
public  would  not  raise  wages.  The  public  pays  more  for 
houses  and  goods,  but  that  does  not  raise  wages.  The 
surplus  paid  by  the  public  is  pure  loss,  because  it  is  only 
paid  to  cover  an  extra  business  risk  of  the  employer.  If 
their  trades-unions  raise  wages,  how  do  they  do  it?  They 


The  Forgotten  Man  23 


do  it  by  lessening  the  supply  of  labor  in  the  trade,  and  this 
they  do  by  limiting  the  number  of  apprentices.  All  that 
is  won,  therefore,  for  those  in  the  trade,  is  won  at  the  ex- 
pense of  those  persons  in  the  same  class  in  life  who  want  to 
get  into  the  trade  but  are  forbidden.  Like  every  other 
monopoly,  this  one  secures  advantages  for  those  who  are 
in  only  at  a  greater  loss  to  those  who  are  kept  out.  Who, 
then,  are  those  who  are  kept  out  and  who  are  always  for- 
gotten in  all  the  discussions?  They  are  the  Forgotten  Men 
again;  and  what  kind  of  men  are  they?  They  are  those 
young  men  who  want  to  earn  their  living  by  the  trade  in 
question.  Since  they  select  it,  it  is  fair  to  suppose  that 
they  are  fit  for  it,  would  succeed  at  it,  and  would  benefit 
society  by  practicing  it;  but  they  are  arbitrarily  excluded 
from  it  and  are  perhaps  pushed  down  into  the  class  of  un- 
skilled laborers.  When  people  talk  of  the  success  of  a 
trades-union  in  raising  wages,  they  forget  these  persons 
who  have  really,  in  a  sense,  paid  the  increase. 

Let  me  now  turn  your  attention  to  another  class  of  cases. 
I  have  shown  how,  in  time  past,  the  history  of  states  has 
been  a  history  of  selfishness,  cupidity,  and  robbery,  and  I 
have  affirmed  that  now  and  always  the  problems  of  govern- 
ment are  how  to  deal  with  these  same  vices  of  human 
nature.  People  are  always  prone  to  believe  that  there  is 
something  metaphysical  and  sentimental  about  civil  affairs, 
but  there  is  not.  Civil  institutions  are  constructed  to 
protect,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  the  property  of  men 
and  the  honor  of  women  against  the  vices  and  passions  of 
human  nature.  In  our  day  and  country,  the  problem 
presents  new  phases,  but  it  is  there  just  the  same  as  it  ever 
was,  and  the  problem  is  only  the  more  -  difficult  for  us  be- 
cause of  its  new  phase  which  prevents  us  from  recognizing 
it.  In  fact,  our  people  are  raving  and  struggling  against 
it  in  a  kind  of  blind  way,  not  yet  having  come  to  recognize 
it.    More  than  half  of  their  blows,  at  present,  are  mis- 


24  The  Forgotten  Man 


directed  and  fail  of  their  object,  but  they  will  be  aimed 
better  by  and  by.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  clamor  about 
watering  stocks  and  the  power  of  combined  capital,  which 
is  not  very  intelligent  or  well-directed.  The  evil  and  abuse 
which  people  are  groping  after  in  all  these  denunciations  is 
jobbery. 

By  jobbery  I  mean  the  constantly  apparent  effort  to 
win  wealth,  not  by  honest  and  independent  production, 
but  by  some  sort  of  a  scheme  for  extorting  other  people's 
product  from  them.  A  large  part  of  our  legislation  con- 
sists in  making  a  job  for  somebody.  Public  buildings  are 
jobs,  not  always,  but  in  most  cases.  The  buildings  are 
not  needed  at  all  or  are  costly  far  beyond  what  is  useful  or 
even  decently  luxurious.  Internal  improvements  are  jobs. 
They  are  carried  out,  not  because  they  are  needed  in  them- 
selves, but  because  they  will  serve  the  turn  of  some  private 
interest,  often  incidentally  that  of  the  very  legislators  who 
pass  the  appropriations  for  them.  A  man  who  wants  a 
farm,  instead  of  going  out  where  there  is  plenty  of  land 
available  for  it,  goes  down  under  the  Mississippi  River  to 
make  a  farm,  and  then  wants  his  fellow-citizens  to  be 
taxed  to  dyke  the  river  so  as  to  keep  it  off  his  farm.  The 
Californian  hydraulic  miners  have  washed  the  gold  out  of 
the  hillsides  and  have  washed  the  dirt  down  into  the  valleys 
to  the  ruin  of  the  rivers  and  the  farms.  They  want  the 
federal  government  to  remove  'this  dirt  at  the  national 
expense.  The  silver  miners,  finding  that  their  product  is 
losing  value  in  the  market,  get  the  government  to  go  into 
the  market  as  a  great  buyer  in  the  hope  of  sustaining  the 
price.  The  national  government  is  called  upon  to  buy  or 
hire  unsalable  ships;  to  dig  canals  which  will  not  pay; 
to  educate  illiterates  in  the  states  which  have  not  done 
their  duty  at  the  expense  of  the  states  which  have  done 
their  duty  as  to  education;  to  buy  up  telegraphs  which  no 
longer  pay;  and  to  provide  the  capital  for  enterprises  of 


The  Forgotten  Man  25 


which  private  individuals  are  to  win  the  profits.  We  are 
called  upon  to  squander  twenty  millions  on  swamps  and 
creeks;  from  twenty  to  sixty -six  millions  on  the  Mississippi 
River;  one  hundred  millions  in  pensions  —  and  there  is 
now  a  demand  for  another  hundred  million  beyond  that. 
This  is  the  great  plan  of  all  living  on  each  other.  The 
pensions  in  England  used  to  be  given  to  aristocrats  who 
had  political  power,  in  order  to  corrupt  them.  Here  the 
pensions  are  given  to  the  great  democratic  mass  who  have 
the  political  power,  in  order  to  corrupt  them.  We  have 
one  hundred  thousand  federal  office-holders  and  I  do  not 
know  how  many  state  and  municipal  office-holders.  Of 
course  public  officers  are  necessary  and  it  is  an  economical 
organization  of  society  to  set  apart  some  of  its  members 
for  civil  functions,  but  if  the  number  of  persons  drawn 
from  production  and  supported  by  the  producers  while 
engaged  in  civil  functions  is  in  undue  proportion  to  the 
total  population,  there  is  economic  loss.  If  public  offices 
are  treated  as  spoils  or  benefices  or  sinecures,  then  they 
are  jobs  and  only  constitute  part  of  the  pillage. 

The  biggest  job  of  all  is  a  protective  tariff.  This  device 
consists  in  delivering  every  man  over  to  be  plundered  by  his 
neighbor  and  in  teaching  him  to  believe  that  it  is  a  good 
thing  for  him  and  his  country  because  he  may  take  his  turn 
at  plundering  the  rest.  Mr.  Kelley  said  that  if  the  internal 
revenue  taxes  on  whisky  and  tobacco,  which  are  paid  to 
the  United  States  government,  were  not  taken  off,  there 
would  be  a  rebellion.  Just  then  it  was  discovered  that 
Sumatra  tobacco  was  being  imported,  and  the  Connecticut 
tobacco  men  hastened  to  Congress  to  get  a  tax  laid  on  it 
for  their  advantage.  So  it  appears  that  if  a  tax  is  laid  on 
tobacco,  to  be  paid  to  the  United  States,  there  will  be  a 
rebellion,  but  if  a  tax  is  laid  on  it  to  be  paid  to  the  farmers 
of  the  Connecticut  Valley,  there  will  be  no  rebellion  at  all. 
The  tobacco  farmers  having  been  taxed  for  protected  manu- 


26  The  Forgotten  Man 


factures  are  now  to  be  taken  into  the  system,  and  the 
workmen  in  the  factories  are  to  be  taxed  on  their  tobacco 
to  protect  the  farmers.  So  the  system  is  rendered  more 
complete  and  comprehensive. 

On  every  hand  you  find  this  jobbery.  The  government 
is  to  give  every  man  a  pension,  and  every  man  an  office, 
and  every  man  a  tax  to  raise  the  price  of  his  product,  and 
to  clean  out  every  man's  creek  for  him,  and  to  buy  all  his 
unsalable  property,  and  to  provide  him  with  plenty  of  cur- 
rency to  pay  his  debts,  and  to  educate  his  children,  and  to 
give  him  the  use  of  a  library  and  a  park  and  a  museum  and 
a  gallery  of  pictures.  On  every  side  the  doors  of  waste  and 
extravagance  stand  open;  and  spend,  squander,  plunder, 
and  grab  are  the  watchwords.  We  grumble  some  about  it 
and  talk  about  the  greed  of  corporations  and  the  power 
of  capital  and  the  wickedness  of  stock  gambling.  Yet  we 
elect  the  legislators  who  do  all  this  work.  Of  course,  we 
should  never  think  of  blaming  ourselves  for  electing  men 
to  represent  and  govern  us,  who,  if  I  may  use  a  slang  expres- 
sion, give  us  away.  What  man  ever  blamed  himself  for  his 
misfortune?  We  groan  about  monopolies  and  talk  about 
more  laws  to  prevent  the  wrongs  done  by  chartered  corpora- 
tions. Who  made  the  charters?  Our  representatives. 
Who  elected  such  representatives?  We  did.  How  can  we 
get  bad  law-makers  to  make  a  law  which  shall  prevent 
bad  law-makers  from  making  a  bad  law?  That  is,  really, 
what  we  are  trying  to  do.  If  we  are  a  free,  self-governing 
people,  all  our  misfortunes  come  right  home  to  ourselves 
and  we  can  blame  nobody  else.  Is  any  one  astonished  to 
find  that  men  are  greedy,  whether  they  are  incorporated  or 
not?  Is  it  a  revelation  to  find  that  we  need,  in  our  civil 
affairs,  to  devise  guarantees  against  selfishness,  rapacity, 
and  fraud?  I  have  ventured  to  affirm  that  government 
has  never  had  to  deal  with  anything  else. 

Now,  I  have  said  that  this  jobbery  means  waste,  plunder, 


The  Forgotten  Man  27 


and  loss,  and  I  defined  it  at  the  outset  as  the  system  of 
making  a  chance  to  extort  part  of  his  product  from  some- 
body else.  Now  comes  the  question:  ^Tio  pays  for  it  all? 
The  system  of  plundering  each  other  soon  destroys  all  that 
it  deals  with.  It  produces  nothing.  Wealth  comes  only 
from  production,  and  all  that  the  wrangling  grabbers, 
loafers,  and  jobbers  get  to  deal  with  comes  from  some- 
body's toil  and  sacrifice.  "Who,  then,  is  he  who  provides 
it  all?  Go  and  find  him  and  you  will  have  once  more 
before  you  the  Forgotten  Man.  You  will  find  him  hard  at 
work  because  he  has  a  great  many  to  support.  Nature  has 
done  a  great  deal  for  him  in  giving  him  a  fertile  soil  and  an 
excellent  climate  and  he  wonders  why  it  is  that,  after  all, 
his  scale  of  comfort  is  so  moderate.  He  has  to  get  out  of 
the  soil  enough  to  pay  all  his  taxes,  and  that  means  the 
cost  of  all  the  jobs  and  the  fund  for  all  the  plunder.  The 
Forgotten  Man  is  delving  away  in  patient  industry,  sup- 
porting his  family,  paying  his  taxes,  casting  his  vote, 
supporting  the  church  and  the  school,  reading  his  news- 
paper, and  cheering  for  the  politician  of  his  admiration,  but 
he  is  the  only  one  for  whom  there  is  no  provision  in  the 
great  scramble  and  the  big  divide. 

Such  is  the  Forgotten  Man.  He  works,  he  votes,  generally 
he  prays  —  but  he  always  pays  —  yes,  above  all,  he  pays. 
He  does  not  want  an  office;  his  name  never  gets  into  the 
newspaper  except  when  he  gets  married  or  dies.  He  keeps 
production  going  on.  He  contributes  to  the  strength  of 
parties.  He  is  flattered  before  election.  He  is  strongly 
patriotic.  He  is  wanted,  whenever,  in  his  little  circle, 
there  is  work  to  be  done  or  counsel  to  be  given.  He  may 
grumble  some  occasionally  to  his  wife  and  family,  but  he 
does  not  frequent  the  grocery  or  talk  politics  at  the  tavern. 
Consequently,  he  is  forgotten.  He  is  a  commonplace  man. 
He  gives  no  trouble.  He  excites  no  admiration.  He  is 
not  in  any  way  a  hero  (like  a  popular  orator) ;  or  a  problem 


28  The  Forgotten  Man 


(like  tramps  and  outcasts);  nor  notorious  (like  criminals); 
nor  an  object  of  sentiment  (like  the  poor  and  weak) ;  nor  a 
burden  (like  paupers  and  loafers);  nor  an  object  out  of 
which  social  capital  may  be  made  (like  the  beneficiaries  of 
church  and  state  charities);  nor  an  object  for  charitable 
aid  and  protection  (like  animals  treated  with  cruelty); 
nor  the  object  of  a  job  (like  the  ignorant  and  illiterate); 
nor  one  over  whom  sentimental  economists  and  statesmen 
can  parade  their  fine  sentiments  (like  inefficient  workmen 
and  shiftless  artisans).  Therefore,  he  is  forgotten.  All 
the  burdens  fall  on  him,  or  on  her,  for  it  is  time  to  remember 
that  the  Forgotten  Man  is  not  seldom  a  woman. 

When  you  go  to  Willimantic,  they  will  show  you  with 
great  pride  the  splendid  thread  mills  there.  I  am  told 
that  there  are  sewing-women  who  can  earn  only  fifty  cents 
in  twelve  hours,  and  provide  the  thread.  In  the  cost  of 
every  spool  of  thread  more  than  one  cent  is  tax.  It  is  paid, 
not  to  get  the  thread,  for  you  could  get  the  thread  without 
it.  It  is  paid  to  get  the  Willimantic  linen  company  which 
is  not  worth  having  and  which  is,  in  fact,  a  nuisance,  because 
it  makes  thread  harder  to  get  than  it  would  be  if  there  were 
no  such  concern.  If  a  woman  earns  fifty  cents  in  twelve 
hours,  she  earns  a  spool  of  thread  as  nearly  as  may  be  in 
an  hour,  and  if  she  uses  a  spool  of  thread  per  day,  she 
works  a  quarter  of  an  hour  per  day  to  support  the  Willi- 
mantic linen  company,  which  in  1882  paid  95  per  cent 
dividend  to  its  stockholders.  If  you  go  and  look  at  the  mill, 
it  will  captivate  your  imagination  until  you  remember  all 
the  women  in  all  the  garrets,  and  all  the  artisans'  and 
laborers'  wives  and  children  who  are  spending  their  hours  of 
labor,  not  to  get  goods  which  they  need,  but  to  pay  for  the 
industrial  system  which  only  stands  in  their  way  and 
makes  it  harder  for  them  to  get  the  goods. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  the  Forgotten  Man  and  the 
Forgotten  Woman  are  the  very  life  and  substance  of  society. 


The  Forgotten  Man  29 


They  are  the  ones  who  ought  to  be  first  and  always  remem- 
bered. They  are  always  forgotten  by  sentimentalists, 
philanthropists,  reformers,  enthusiasts,  and  every  descrip- 
tion of  speculator  in  sociology,  political  economy,  or  political 
science.  If  a  student  of  any  of  these  sciences  ever  comes 
to  understand  the  position  of  the  Forgotten  Man  and  to 
appreciate  his  true  value,  you  will  find  such  student  an 
uncompromising  advocate  of  the  strictest  scientific  thinking 
on  all  social  topics,  and  a  cold  and  hard-hearted  skeptic 
towards  all  artificial  schemes  of  social  amelioration.  If  it 
is  desired  to  bring  about  social  improvements,  bring  us  a 
scheme  for  relieving  the  Forgotten  Man  of  some  of  his 
burdens.  He  is  our  productive  force  which  we  are  wasting. 
Let  us  stop  wasting  his  force.  Then  we  shall  have  a  clean 
and  simple  gain  for  the  whole  society.  The  Forgotten  Man 
is  weighted  down  with  the  cost  and  burden  of  the  schemes 
for  making  everybody  happy,  with  the  cost  of  public  benefi- 
cence, with  the  support  of  all  the  loafers,  with  the  loss  of 
all  the  economic  quackery,  with  the  cost  of  all  the  jobs. 
Let  us  remember  him  a  little  while.  Let  us  take  some  of 
the  burdens  off  him.  Let  us  turn  our  pity  on  him  instead 
of  on  the  good-for-nothing.  It  will  be  only  justice  to  him, 
and  society  will  greatly  gain  by  it.  Why  should  we  not 
also  have  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  and  caring  for  a 
little  while  about  the  clean,  honest,  industrious,  inde- 
pendent, self-supporting  men  and  women  who  have  not 
inherited  much  to  make  life  luxurious  for  them,  but  who  are 
doing  what  they  can  to  get  on  in  the  world  without  begging 
from  anybody,  especially  since  all  they  want  is  to  be  let 
alone,  with  good  friendship  and  honest  respect.  Certainly 
the  philanthropists  and  sentimentalists  have  kept  our 
attention  for  a  long  time  on  the  nasty,  shiftless,  criminal, 
whining,  crawling,  and  good-for-nothing  people,  as  if  they 
alone  deserved  our  attention. 

The  Forgotten  Man  is  never  a  pauper.    He  almost  always 


30  The  Forgotten  Man 


has  a  little  capital  because  it  belongs  to  the  character  of  the 
man  to  save  something.  He  never  has  more  than  a  little. 
He  is,  therefore,  poor  in  the  popular  sense,  although  in  the 
correct  sense  he  is  not  so.  I  have  said  already  that  if  you 
learn  to  look  for  the  Forgotten  Man  and  to  care  for  him, 
you  will  be  very  skeptical  toward  all  philanthropic  and 
humanitarian  schemes.  It  is  clear  now  that  the  interest 
of  the  Forgotten  Man  and  the  interest  of  "the  poor,"  "the 
weak,"  and  the  other  petted  classes  are  in  antagonism. 
In  fact,  the  warning  to  you  to  look  for  the  Forgotten  Man 
comes  the  minute  that  the  orator  or  writer  begins  to  talk 
about  the  poor  man.  That  minute  the  Forgotten  Man  is 
in  danger  of  a  new  assault,  and  if  you  intend  to  meddle  in 
the  matter  at  all,  then  is  the  minute  for  you  to  look  about 
for  him  and  to  give  him  your  aid.  Hence,  if  you  care  for 
the  Forgotten  Man,  you  will  be  sure  to  be  charged  with 
not  caring  for  the  poor.  Whatever  you  do  for  any  of  the 
petted  classes  wastes  capital.  If  you  do  anything  for  the 
Forgotten  Man,  you  must  secure  him  his  earnings  and 
savings,  that  is,  you  legislate  for  the  security  of  capital 
and  for  its  free  employment;  you  must  oppose  paper 
money,  wildcat  banking  and  usury  laws  and  you  must 
maintain  the  inviolability  of  contracts.  Hence  you  must 
be  prepared  to  be  told  that  you  favor  the  capitalist  class, 
the  enemy  of  the  poor  man. 

What  the  Forgotten  Man  really  wants  is  true  liberty. 
Most  of  his  wrongs  and  woes  come  from  the  fact  that  there 
are  yet  mixed  together  in  our  institutions  the  old  mediaeval 
theories  of  protection  and  personal  dependence  and  the 
modern  theories  of  independence  and  individual  liberty. 
The  consequence  is  that  the  people  who  are  clever  enough 
to  get  into  positions  of  control,  measure  their  own  rights 
by  the  paternal  theory  and  their  own  duties  by  the  theory 
of  independent  liberty.  It  follows  that  the  Forgotten 
Man,  who  is  hard  at  work  at  home,  has  to  pay  both  ways. 


The  Forgotten  Man  31 


His  rights  are  measured  by  the  theory  of  liberty,  that  is, 
he  has  only  such  as  he  can  conquer.  His  duties  are  measured 
by  the  paternal  theory,  that  is,  he  must  discharge  all  which 
are  laid  upon  him,  as  is  always  the  fortune  of  parents. 
People  talk  about  the  paternal  theory  of  government  as  if 
it  were  a  very  simple  thing.  Analyze  it,  however,  and  you 
see  that  in  every  paternal  relation  there  must  be  two  parties, 
a  parent  and  a  child,  and  when  you  speak  metaphorically, 
it  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world  who  is  parent  and 
who  is  child.  Now,  since  we,  the  people,  are  the  state, 
whenever  there  is  any  work  to  be  done  or  expense  to  be  paid, 
and  since  the  petted  classes  and  the  criminals  and  the 
jobbers  cost  and  do  not  pay,  it  is  they  who  are  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  child,  and  it  is  the  Forgotten  Man  who  is  the 
parent.  What  the  Forgotten  Man  needs,  therefore,  is  that 
we  come  to  a  clearer  understanding  of  liberty  and  to  a 
more  complete  realization  of  it.  Every  step  which  we  win 
in  liberty  will  set  the  Forgotten  Man  free  from  some  of  his 
burdens  and  allow  him  to  use  his  powers  for  himself  and  for 
the  commonwealth. 


Books  by 

WILLIAM  GRAHAM  SUMNER 


The  Forgotten  Man  and  Other  Essays  $3.00 

What  Social  Classes  Owe  to  Each  Other  1.50 

War  and  Other  Essays  3.00 

Discipline  and  Other  Essays  .50 

Earth  Hunger  and  Other  Essays  3.00 

^ALSO— 

The  Science  of  Society  $20.00 
By  William  Graham  Sumner  and  A.  G.  Keller  (William  Graham 
Sumner  Professor  of  the  Science  of  Society,  Yale  University).  Four 
Volumes. 

Man's  Rough  Road:  The  Evolution  of  Society  $3.00 


By  A.  G.  Keller  (Published  in  Association  with  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co.) 


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